Trap-Neuter-Return: A Study of the Practice in Switzerland

4.2.3Engaging the Government and General Public at the National Level

A third innovative aspect to highlight is the national petition put forward by TIR and NetAP, calling for mandatory castration of outdoor (owned) cats. The petition, which garnered over 115,000 signatures, was delivered to the Swiss Parliament in June 2018.²⁴⁵ This section will discuss its rationale and strengths as well as criticisms or potential drawbacks of the petition.

First, a few words on petitions in Switzerland. According to the Swiss constitution, “everyone has the right, without prejudice, to petition the authorities,” and the authorities “must acknowledge receipt of such petitions.”²⁴⁶ This right “gives citizens the right to express a concern in writing to the authority in charge of some matter” and “can take the form of a request, a demand or a simple suggestion.”²⁴⁷ Although the petition “does not have any legal value per se,” it allows people ‘to make their voices heard,” and while authorities are not required to respond, they “generally do consider petitions and respond.”²⁴⁸

The petition calls on the Federal Council and Parliament to introduce mandatory castration for owned cats that are allowed outdoors, “to stem the excessive reproduction of cats and thus reduce the suffering of — S. 83 —cats in Switzerland.”²⁴⁹ It argues that one of the main causes of the problem is that cat owners do not spay and neuter their outdoor-roaming cats, which then breed with intact, unowned (feral, stray or abandoned) cats. It also asserts that AWO article 25(4), which states that owners must take “reasonable precautions” (“zumutbaren Massnahmen”) to prevent excessive breeding of their animals,²⁵⁰ is inadequate, and that owners cannot possibly restrict the mating behavior of their intact outdoor cats. Further, it outlines the consequences of this excessive breeding and its contribution to the population of unowned cats (spread of disease, cats dying due to lack of medical care and an estimated 100,000 unwanted cats and litters of kittens abandoned or killed each year.) The petitioners demand a modification to the regulation such that Art. 25(4) be supplemented with the wording, “free-roaming domestic cats must be castrated by a veterinarian.”²⁵¹ They also point out that other countries, such as neighboring Germany and Austria, have already successfully introduced mandatory cat castration in various municipalities.²⁵²

Besides the 115,567 individual signatories (which included 39 lawmakers), over 150 organizations support the petition, as do a number of Swiss celebrities.²⁵³ The Federal Council recommended rejection of the petition as well as of a supporting motion by Doris Fiala, a National Councilor from Zurich,²⁵⁴ though the government did not call into question the existence of feline suffering in Switzerland.²⁵⁵ The petition will be discussed further below. First, however, it is worth citing in detail the government’s response, as well as the rejoinder by the lead petitioning groups, as these provide a more complete picture of the complexities of the debate in Switzerland on feline overpopulation.

In October 2018, four months after the petition was delivered, the PSA, the FSVO and the Société des Vétérinaires Suisses (Society of Swiss Veterinarians, hereafter, SVS) launched a responsible pet ownership campaign called Luna and Filou (to be discussed further in section 5). The same month, the FSVO published on its website its document “Questions and responses on castration of free-roaming cats and on electronic microchips,”²⁵⁶ referred to in section 3. It is this document, which contains FSVO’s position on the petition, to which NetAP and TIR responded in December 2018.²⁵⁷

TIR and NetAP first take the government to task for failing to distinguish between outdoor, owned cats

–the subject of the petition – and feral cats. FSVO refers in its response to an earlier, rejected petition from 2016 by another Swiss NGO that had called for castration of all cats in Switzerland, and says that it would be “disproportionate and untimely” to require the castration of “all domestic, free-roaming and stray cats” in Switzerland. The 2018 petition, however, covers exclusively owned outdoor cats, and as TIR and NetAP point out, to suggest otherwise is misleading. Likewise, the FSVO’s complaint that it would be an “insurmountable burden” if the public sector were to castrate community cats is based on a willful misreading of the petition; TIR and NetAP respond that the costs of castration would be borne by cat owners, and that the petition is not calling for the state to carry out castration campaigns. To the government’s argument that it could not afford costly castration campaigns, TIR and NetAP retort that castration of feral cats has always been taken care of in Switzerland by private animal welfare organizations as the state is “unwilling” (“nicht gewillt”) to put money toward neutering these cats. In their view, the government’s refusal to mandate castration shows that it is not only continuing to expect animal welfare organizations to shoulder the weight of solving the problem; it is also not prepared to support a solution that would ease the burden on these organizations and be “costneutral” — S. 84 —for the state.²⁵⁸

To the government’s claim that mandatory castration would infringe on owners’ rights and create a new duty, the petitioners underscore that their petition simply calls for concretizing an existing regulation, AWO Art. 25(4), so there is no new duty foreseen. Further, they question putting animal owners’ freedom above animal welfare, given that the AWA and AWO are predicated on regulating human behavior to protect animals’ interests, and they argue that mandatory castration is a proportionate and sustainable measure in the face of animal suffering, and one that would bring “more legal certainty.” TIR and NetAP also reject the FSVO’s claim that the proposed measure would “not necessarily improve the situation of stray cats”; in their reasoning, the two groups underscore that feral cats originate primarily in private households and on farms, and by addressing this source, mandatory castration is aimed precisely at reducing the stray cat population sustainably.²⁵⁹

The FSVO further claims that cantons and communes already often organize “targeted castration campaigns” for stray cats (“chats errants”), “sometimes in collaboration with animal protection organizations.” TIR and NetAP reiterate that currently this task is “planned, financed and carried out” by private organizations, and the extent to which communes or cantons participate is unknown. Finally, to the FSVO’s call to “better inform and sensitize all concerned rather than to regulate more”, the petitioners argue that education alone will not suffice, and that Article 25(4) as currently formulated “has not reduced animal suffering.”

The Society of Swiss Veterinarians (SVS), a national organization representing the professional interests of veterinarians, also responded to the petition. While acknowledging that spaying and neutering cats is recommended for medical and animal welfare reasons and to limit uncontrolled breeding, the organization argues for voluntary, not mandatory, castration of owned outdoor cats. It also states that TNR of feral cats is a “necessary and adequate measure that should continue to be supported.”²⁶⁰ As they did for the government’s response, TIR and NetAP published a detailed rebuttal of the SVS’s key points in late 2018,²⁶¹ including the following:

•SVS’s endorsement of TNR, while at the same time arguing that owners should not be obliged to spay and neuter their cats, misses the point that feral cats originate primarily in private homes, and owners are therefore part of the root of the problem;

•A voluntary approach has not worked so far in Switzerland; owners already do not obey the AWO Article 25(4), so SVS is essentially opposing “consistent implementation” of the existing regulation;

•To SVS’s call for more education and sensitization, TIR and NetAP argue that many owners are not reached by information campaigns. The two groups have no objection to “comprehensive education campaigns” – these could even help cat owners accept their duty – but this should be in addition to, and not instead of, a legal obligation;

•To SVS’s concern that mandatory castration would limit feline genetic diversity, TIR and NetAP argue that there are still enough feral and stray cats (“verwilderte und zugelaufene Katzen”) to enrich the gene pool, and that should it prove, at a later date, that the cat population was “overregulated”, the castration requirement could be “loosened.”

The petition has several strengths. First, as the above detailed and careful responses to the FSVO and SVS demonstrate, the initiators have thought through multiple angles and have robust comebacks to many of the questions or criticisms raised. They even address the question of animal dignity – as discussed in section 3, a principle enshrined in the Swiss Constitution – in giving their rationale for the petition. Namely, in their “FAQ” document to the public, they include the question, “doesn’t castration affect the cat’s dignity because it prevents the animal from satisfying his sexual urges or raising young”? Their response is that compromising the cat’s dignity is justified in this case because it serves a higher interest. Specifically, “the interest of controlling the feline population and preventing many animals from suffering needlessly overrides the interest — S. 85 —of each animal and its right to satisfy his sexual desires” or right to procreate.²⁶²

Second, the petition aims to address root causes in two ways. Namely, it seeks to repair a weakness in Swiss animal welfare law: namely, the vague wording or unenforceability of AWO Art. 25(4). And it focuses on irresponsible pet ownership and its contribution to the suffering of community cats. In this context, it is worth noting that studies of TNR in other countries have emphasized the importance of addressing “contributing human behaviors (e.g. allowing owned cats to roam freely, abandoning unwanted cats)” while also implementing biological methods of control.²⁶³

Third, the petition’s stated goals are ambitious: “sustainable regulation of the cat population without killing; prevention of future cat suffering; increase the chances of adoption for animals from shelters; change of mentality – cats today are sometimes perceived as ‘disposable animals’ whose lives are of no value and can be replaced quickly.”²⁶⁴ Yet its approach is arguably pragmatic, asking only for a modification of an existing regulation, which would not add any new duties but would only “concretize” what the AWO calls for. Indeed, the petitioners make a point of not overreaching: the groups involved realized that, although a comprehensive solution to the problem of uncontrolled cat breeding and the suffering of community cats is complex and would involve action on many fronts, they decided to aim for one discreet change that could make a difference. For example, while mandatory microchipping could be helpful in reducing the likelihood of pet abandonment, the initiators did not want to overload the petition or mix the two issues, judging that mandatory castration could be a way to “find a rapid solution to reduce cat suffering.”²⁶⁵ As an aside, in 2013 a National Councilor put forward a postulate asking the Federal Council to consider and report on the appropriateness of draft legislation mandating microchipping of cats, but the motion was not pursued.²⁶⁶

Finally, the petitioners chose to take the issue to the national level, as animal protection is a federal competence and the cantons have “no legislative powers in this area.”²⁶⁷ This is one way to address the cantons’ uneven approach to animal welfare enforcement discussed earlier.

Despite these strengths, there remain open questions. One is how the measure would be enforced, were the government to agree to make the change to the regulation. NetAP and TIR acknowledge the concern that “100% respect” of mandatory spay and neuter cannot be guaranteed.²⁶⁸ They assert, in response, that the main purpose of the petition “is not to catch and punish as many culprits as possible;” rather, the clarity of the changed law would bring its own benefits.²⁶⁹ For example: veterinarians could help clients in obeying the law; animal welfare organizations carrying out TNR would no longer risk being sued for accidentally castrating owned cats (which, by the changed law, would have to have been neutered already); and shelters could immediately spay and neuter found animals without having to wait the legal minimum of two months called for in the Civil Code. The initiators insist that the Swiss population is “generally respectful of the law” and if 80% of people complied, it would represent important progress in reducing cat suffering.²⁷⁰

While it is undoubtedly true that an 80% compliance level would a significant improvement, it is unclear — S. 86 —how realistic that prospect is, and if the compliance percentage remained low, what the prospects would be for government enforcement of non-compliance. For comparison, Belgium has recently passed legislation mandating the neutering of owned and stray cats (the government is phasing it in between 2018 and 2020). It is the first country to do so nationally.²⁷¹ According to one source, the government “has no plans to directly audit citizens’ compliance” with the law. However, owners will also be required to microchip cats, who will be registered in a central database. Therefore, as one minister argued, “since registration and identification is mandatory for the whole country, sterilisation can be certified through the database.”²⁷² Clearly this is new territory, and if enforcement and compliance remain open questions in Belgium, which has already passed a law, the same questions are probably valid for Switzerland, too.

Another question that arises in relation to the petition is financial in nature. Some TNR practitioners, particularly in the United States, have criticized the concept of mandatory spay and neuter (hereafter, MSN) as well-intentioned but misguided. Alley Cat Allies argues MSN is not effective in the U.S. because it targets only the owned cat population, most of which (82%) is already neutered, while “ignoring” stray and feral cat populations, which are less than 3% neutered.²⁷³ The group also argues that MSN is a “financial burden on taxpayers” and government budgets due to the costs of enforcement.²⁷⁴ While the petitioners in Switzerland point out that owners would pay the cost of spaying and neutering if the proposed change were made to the regulation, they do not seem to anticipate any costs for enforcing it, and although they argue (as above) that the initiative is not about punishing people, there must be some public financial implications to enforcement and compliance. This remains unanswered.

Further, Alley Cat Allies argues that resources should go to supporting spay and neuter programs in place of MSN.²⁷⁵ Similarly, Winograd argues that, rather than pursuing MSN, efforts should be put toward low-cost spay and neuter programs to help ensure that low-income pet owners’ cats are covered. He notes that many studies have shown that intact pets “tend to belong to people with the lowest incomes.”²⁷⁶ Interestingly, some Swiss shelters and animal welfare organizations already cover spaying and neutering for pet owners who cannot afford it,²⁷⁷ and at least one instance was found of a PSA section that for years has offered free spaying and neutering to any cat owner who wants it.²⁷⁸ It is unclear, however, how widespread these services are in the country.

It seems that low-cost spay and neuter has not been broached in the debate around the petition, and that is a gap. The vouchers offered by PSA sections and others are obviously very important, as already discussed, but the larger criticisms of MSN raised by Alley Cat Allies and Winograd are worth probing. In addition, efforts to find data in Switzerland on sterilization rates of owned cats (much less community cats) turned up no information. These would also be useful data points for discussion. Perhaps the upshot is that MSN remains a contested topic, with disagreement among TNR practitioners about its merits and when it should be used. Or as one expert has put it, MSN should be “considered in relation to the specifics of the problem and the cat population in a particular place.”²⁷⁹

These gaps aside, the petition is an important step for TNR in Switzerland. Although it is not technically about TNR itself, the petition gets to the heart of, and tries to address, the same problems on which TNR is predicated: the management and ultimately the reduction of feline overpopulation through sustainable and humane measures, and the elimination of cat suffering.

The petition has been reviewed by the Committee on Science, Education and Culture of the National Council, which requested that its chamber not endorse the petition, and the National Council obliged in June 2019. It is not known when the Council of States will review the petition.²⁸⁰ Isabelle Schnell notes that it is difficult to evaluate the petition’s prospects, and that the FSVO’s rejection of mandatory castration “makes it difficult to implement this project.”²⁸¹ Once a petition is rejected, there is no appeals procedure, though as — S. 87 —Schnell points out, National Councilor Fiala’s motion is still pending, and in any case, TIR plans “to continue to focus on raising awareness and our animal protection work in this spirit and, if necessary, to discuss new policy interventions.”²⁸² Indeed, even if the government does not take up the petition’s proposal, the process behind the petition – gathering signatures, generating publicity and triggering debate within Parliament – has arguably already played an important role in increasing awareness among the populace and among lawmakers of the problems at hand. This fits within a long line of public engagement in Switzerland on animal welfare issues,²⁸³ a point that will be taken up again briefly at the end of section 5.

Epilogue: In late 2020, both chambers of the Swiss parliament rejected the petition, putting an end to the initiative. TIR expressed its disappointment that the parliament had “failed to commit itself to a sustainable solution to the stray animal issue.”²⁸⁴ It reaffirmed its commitment, along with NetAP, to keep pushing for such a solution, noting that the two groups would continue to engage with federal officials and were looking into possible cantonal-level measures.²⁸⁵

Section 5. Advancing TNR in Switzerland: Insights from Elsewhere?

As the previous section indicates, TNR is well-rooted in Switzerland. Many dedicated groups and individuals have built up years of experience carrying out castration campaigns in an effort to address the uncontrolled breeding of stray, abandoned and feral cats and to improve the welfare of these cats. It is evident that an informal network of TNR practitioners exists throughout the country, the exact contours of which await further research. Despite being well-established and demonstrating certain strengths and innovative features, however, TNR in Switzerland faces persistent challenges, which, in addition to weaknesses in the TNR programs themselves, need to be addressed if the method is to succeed in the country. This section explores this theme, and discusses both modifications that TNR practitioners could bring about as well as changes that will require more involvement from other sectors, such as the government and the press.

Many of the difficulties facing TNR in Switzerland are similar to those faced in other countries. Where relevant, therefore, the section brings in lessons that have emerged from elsewhere that could provide guidance for Swiss initiatives. The discussion that follows is not meant as a comprehensive review. Rather, it contemplates possible advancement through selected elements that could respond to very specific challenges uncovered in the research: namely, legal and governance-related changes (with governance referring to local governance, specifically the involvement of communes and cantons in TNR); education and changes in mentality or behavior; and technical improvements to TNR.²⁸⁶ Some of these changes might be easier to imagine or implement than others. But because the article is a first cut at the case study of TNR in Switzerland, this section seeks both to offer very concrete proposals for the shorter and medium term as well as to stimulate discussion about what could be feasible ways to improve its prospects in the longer term as well.

5.1Legal and Governance Changes

Switzerland is considered by many to have good animal welfare laws – as one jurist puts it, “a solid basis to improve the quality of its animals’ lives” – but enforcement remains an important problem.²⁸⁷ Both the literature and interviews with key informants confirm that even serious animal abuse often results in only light sentences for offenders.²⁸⁸ In its annual analysis of Swiss criminal case law in relation to animal protection, TIR has repeatedly found much room for improvement in the implementation of animal welfare — S. 88 —legislation and in the prosecution and sanctioning of violations.²⁸⁹ Stronger enforcement of existing laws, such as the prohibition on the abandonment of animals (AWA, Article 26 (1e)), would reduce an important source of feline overpopulation, thus lowering the number of cats that TNR must address.

Another legal modification that has been discussed in Switzerland is the mandatory microchipping of cats. The initiators of the petition on mandatory castration have stated that in principle they are favorably disposed to mandatory micro-chipping and registration of cats and that it could be “an important tool” in particular to reduce the number of abandoned cats in Switzerland by increasing the disincentive for abandonment. As noted earlier, however, they have focused on mandatory castration because their main goal is feline population control; micro-chipping and registration “on its own cannot prevent unwanted reproduction” or alter cats’ sexual behavior and would therefore be an additional measure, not a substitute to mandatory castration.²⁹⁰ In this sense, they are in agreement with other TNR proponents who point out that microchipping is only a partial solution to the problem of uncontrolled breeding of community cats.

Several interviewees lamented the lack of mandatory microchipping of pet cats in Switzerland, arguing that not only would it reduce abandonment; it would also ease the work of both animal shelters and organizations carrying out TNR. This is true for a number of reasons. Namely, a chipped (owned) cat trapped accidentally for TNR could be scanned before surgery; if the cat’s owner is located, the animal could be reunited with the person. On the other hand, if the owner declined to reclaim the cat, the animal could be put up for adoption right away, without the shelter or TNR organization having to wait the two months mandated by Swiss law. Chipping would also reduce legal risks for the TNR practitioner because it would reduce the likelihood that an owned cat would be accidentally neutered without the owner’s permission. While mandatory microchipping of cats is not presently a widespread practice globally, at least two other countries (Belgium²⁹¹ and France²⁹²) have passed laws requiring registration and identification of cats, showing that it is indeed possible for governments to do so.²⁹³

The question of whether Swiss laws are used to punish TNR is one on which more research is needed; at the very least, there is some anecdotal evidence that law enforcement authorities and local lawmakers have sometimes taken punitive measures. It is not clear how much of a problem this is in comparison to other countries. In the U.S., TNR experts have noted that certain local ordinances can expose cat colony caregivers to punishment. These include the prohibition of feeding community cats (“feeding bans”), and the deeming of the “return” component of TNR to be “abandonment.”²⁹⁴

Similarly, the risk exists in Switzerland that certain laws could cause problems for, or even be used against, those caring for community cat colonies. To take one example, it can be difficult to determine whether a cat found in a community is owned, lost or abandoned; this is a challenge TNR practitioners face all over the world. As noted in section 3, according to Swiss law, a person who finds an animal must report it to the owner, or if he/she is unknown, to the competent authorities, and if no owner is located, the finder becomes the owner after two months have passed, at which point the person can have the animal neutered. If, however, the finder does so before the two months pass and the owner then appears, the latter could file a criminal complaint for damage to property under the Swiss Criminal Code.²⁹⁵ Those carrying out TNR campaigns are obviously not “finders” in the sense of people who plan to take over ownership of the cats that are being neutered; they could still, however, be subject to this provision. In this context, several Swiss TNR practitioners interviewed spoke of the efforts they make to determine whether cats are owned before they submit the animals to surgery (these measures include careful observation of a cat’s behavior around people — S. 89 —to see whether the animal is likely to be feral; distribution of notices in neighborhoods where castration campaigns will take place; and consultation of local residents to see whether anyone knows the cat and/or its owner).

In a related vein, one key informant, pointing to AWA article 6(1), which says that “anyone who keeps or looks after animals must feed and care for them properly”, noted that, at least in her canton, some communes would not participate in castration campaigns because they asserted that the person who feeds community cats

–and not the commune – must pay for their neutering.²⁹⁶ Another interviewee said that whether TNR participants faced legal obstacles in Switzerland depended on the canton, and that if the authorities thought a person was the owner because they had fed feral cats, they could give the person legal trouble.²⁹⁷ Schnell notes that, in Swiss law, the keeper of an animal “is defined as the person who has the actual power of decision over an animal with regard to care, use and supervision,” with the decisive factor being “the power to dispose, not the legal relationship with the animal.”²⁹⁸ Article 6(1) of the AWA governs the duty of care toward an animal (specified in the articles 3 ss of the AWO), and, Schnell points out, “by virtue of this principle, any person who keeps or looks after animals shall feed and care for them properly and provide them with the activity and freedom of exercise needed for their well-being, as well as shelter where necessary.” So “in this respect,” she continues, “it is quite possible that a person who cares for stray cats, for example, feeds them and, if necessary, provides them with veterinary care, also legally assumes the status of keeper and will ultimately be responsible for these animals.”²⁹⁹

One way to mitigate these risks could be for cantons to provide training to communal authorities about the benefits of TNR and encouragement to work with TNR providers. The federal government does not seem to be against TNR; indeed, it claims (without providing evidence, according to the petition initiators) that cantons and communes themselves carry out targeted TNR.³⁰⁰ The government could therefore bolster these programs through central messaging to communes, which in principle would not cost very much, and could help address inconsistencies from one commune to another in terms of how they respond to community cat management and cat caregivers. Drawing on the examples in the previous section of positive relationships between government figures and TNR providers, future research could probe the extent to which, at least in certain cantons or communes, these could provide models for formal accords between TNR NGOs and local authorities that would explicitly permit TNR (such as in Commune X) or even promote it (as in Geneva canton). The support of local authorities in allowing TNR in their communes would make the work of providers much easier by eliminating the need to obtain permission – sometimes repeatedly – to carry out castration campaigns in each location. As an aside, it should also be noted here that one lesson from the US is that “it is not always necessary or even advantageous to pursue an ordinance if the local codes present no obstacle” to TNR.³⁰¹ Formal endorsement of a TNR program by municipal authorities, or a written accord between parties, could be sufficient in some cases.

Going somewhat further, a related change could involve not just the communes’ allowing TNR but their active participation in castration campaigns. As Roux points out, although the work of volunteers is essential to TNR, there are also downsides in relying completely on the benevolence of such persons. Beyond the time, energy and skills required of a TNR volunteer, they often have to contribute their own money to meet shortfalls,³⁰² which is not necessarily practical or sustainable in the long term. For example, only Roux’s gasoline costs are reimbursed by the partner communes or the SPA Valais. She suggests that if all volunteers’ costs could be defrayed by communes, this could motivate more people to undertake the difficult work of trapping cats, negotiating with veterinarians, engaging with local authorities and residents, defusing conflicts in villages in relation to community cats, keeping meticulous records, and other day-to-day tasks.³⁰³

Roux further proposes that, once a commune has been stabilized (and all known community cats in the area neutered), an ideal path might be for commune employees to be trained to help with follow-up care of — S. 90 —cat colonies, and for communes to help pay for the TNR of new cats entering the area.³⁰⁴ Such an arrangement could address the sustainability question by making the TNR practitioners’ work more manageable, sharing the costs with local government, and ensuring TNR’s long-term success within communes, as it would be predicated on local buy-in and participation.

Interestingly, this proposal echoes a recommendation in the Humane Society of the US’s guide to municipal leaders on managing community cats: “We strongly encourage municipalities to develop comprehensive volunteer programs and partnerships and agreements with other community organizations.”³⁰⁵ And the idea of formalizing the work of local volunteers has already taken shape in Barcelona, a city whose municipal TNR program formally recognizes the work of volunteer cat caregivers (for example, through training and the granting of identity badges) in a way that brings cat colony management “out of the shadows.”³⁰⁶

In fact, Barcelona is one of a growing number of municipal governments in various countries that work directly with animal welfare organizations and volunteers to carry out TNR. The Barcelona city council shares the costs of TNR with a group of animal welfare organizations. A 2014 ordinance, co-created by the city council and NGOs, recognizes cat colony management as the sole model for feline population control in the municipality, and calls for the city council to promote the existence of controlled cat colonies and to support the organizations that care for these colonies.³⁰⁷

As part of the Barcelona program, the city council’s Department of Animal Welfare provides a clinic for the sterilization of feral and stray cats.³⁰⁸ Models exist elsewhere of municipal governments sharing the costs of TNR with NGOs. In the U.S., some city governments provide funding to non-profits to carry out TNR; according to Alley Cat Allies, this represents a “huge shift in the last 10 years,” in which municipal shelters and animal control entities are “getting on board” with TNR and are willing to share responsibilities for it.³⁰⁹ In Rome, the 30-year-old program to manage domestic cats is, in addition to being based in law, “financed entirely with public money.”³¹⁰ Such programs, in promoting humane management of stable cat colonies, are based not only on reducing animal suffering but also on improving the chances for human-animal co-existence. As such, the programs are arguably a recognition of the right of community cats to continue living freely among human populations.³¹¹

The Swiss examples of Geneva and Commune X, discussed earlier, find certain parallels in these developments elsewhere, though it is not known whether they are isolated cases or if they contain the seeds of change for TNR locally. Lessons emerging from other countries’ experiences, while not necessarily a blueprint for Switzerland, could nonetheless provide valuable guidance on using incremental legal and governance changes to facilitate and advance TNR at the municipal level.

5.2Altering Attitudes and Behavior: Education, Dialogue, Communication

One could argue that bringing about the changes proposed in the previous section would be made much easier if certain attitudes could also be modified. In this context, two potential obstacles to TNR’s success in Switzerland are negative mentalities toward community cats and those who care for them, and irresponsible pet ownership more broadly. Beginning with the first of these, key informant interviews, press accounts and the NGO literature point to attitudinal barriers as an important challenge to TNR work in Switzerland. These include the opinion that it is not worth the money to sterilize community cats; farmers’ refusal in some cases to have farm cats neutered even if the service is offered for free; and local authorities who believe that those — S. 91 —who care for cat colonies should be punished.

The problem of negative attitudes standing in the way of TNR is evident in other countries as well. In their recent study of local residents’ attitudes and behavior toward community cats and neutering in an urban area in the UK, McDonald et al write that TNR “is at risk of becoming insignificant in the long-term if human behaviors and attitudes within the community are not taken into account.”³¹² Their research found that if TNR interventions include engaging communities to understand the “drivers” of these barriers – such as “limited capability, motivation and/or opportunity” – they could have a better chance of succeeding in the long term.³¹³ The authors’ preliminary results showed that a TNR program with intensive outreach to, and engagement of, the community was “changing awareness, attitudes and behavior” toward unowned cats in a positive way.³¹⁴ Moreover, they suggest that where TNR operations can be “embedded within community engagement,” they can then “create a legacy of behavior change that is more likely to continue once TNR operations have ceased.”³¹⁵

While some of their methods, such as the use of modeling, focus groups and community surveys to understand people’s attitudes to unowned cats and neutering, might be beyond the current capacity of many Swiss TNR groups, McDonald et al also propose interventions “such as posters, social media, leaflets, public events, school visits and local TV and radio” as tools to ensure continued community involvement in TNR.³¹⁶ Swiss TNR practitioners already use some of these methods, and with assistance from communes and the press, they might be able to mount the kind of comprehensive communication campaigns detailed by McDonald et al. Other mechanisms outlined in their research, such as a “drop-in point” to “build local awareness of, and trust in, the team” conducting the TNR,³¹⁷ might make sense only for urban areas or larger TNR operations (as opposed to single villages) but they could still provide ideas for similar ways to reach skeptical authorities and residents in both urban and non-urban settings alike.

A recent promising example from Portugal provides further support for the role that community engagement and modifying attitudes can play in strengthening TNR efforts – and the role, in turn, that TNR can play in changing people’s behavior and mentality in relation to animals. The UK charity Change for Animals Foundation (hereafter, CFAF) and its Portuguese NGO partner, Animais de Rua (hereafter, AdR), conducted a four-year dog and cat welfare project in the Algarve region between 2013 and 2017. The project included a TNR campaign aimed at vaccinating, sterilizing and treating “as high a proportion of the cat and dog population as possible”.³¹⁸ The initiative also sought to “promote welfare and responsible ownership to support changes in attitudes and behavior” among local residents.³¹⁹ Preliminary research therefore involved not just an animal population census but a community survey, covering about 25% of the local community, to understand people’s attitudes toward their animals, ownership behavior and perception of stray animals. The project was conducted on the Praia de Faro peninsula on the southern coast of Portugal; due to the location’s “natural inaccessibility”, the animal population is “almost completely contained with no migration.”³²⁰ The year-round population is a “very poor local fishing community” that bears the brunt of caring for animals in the months outside of the summer holidays, when vacationers have gone home. These residents were brought into the project throughout its duration, and the two NGOs reported a high level of community support for the project from the outset.³²¹

Other noteworthy features of the Praia de Faro initiative were the NGOs’ collaboration with a local university to collect and test animal samples for zoonotic diseases; the use of computer modeling for the animal population census and outreach to local veterinarians to “help build bridges” between them and the local community.³²² The project also involved the creation of a Veterinary Solidarity Partnership Protocol that brought together “national and local government, veterinary authorities, private vets, national and — S. 92 —international NGOs and the local community.”³²³ The initiative’s monitoring and evaluation stage (November 2015 – August 2017) was projected to include ongoing TNR of the cat colonies as well as working with the community and local veterinarians to continue to promote animal welfare and responsible ownership through the distribution of resources and materials.³²⁴

In their July 2015 report, CFAF and AdR estimated that “99% of cats on Praia de Faro have been sterilized through this project.”³²⁵ Just as importantly, however, they asserted that “[h]aving built up such a close relationship with the local community means that now, when a new cat appears, they contact local partners Animais de Rua”, which takes care of the cat. All cats in the area are “regularly monitored (both by the community and local AdR volunteers).”³²⁶ CFAF and AdR also report that “one of the biggest successes” of the project has been people’s change in attitude, with the local community “engaged and supportive of the work that took place and with a far greater understanding of the welfare needs of their animals.”³²⁷ The Praia de Faro initiative is explicitly meant as a “model project” that can be replicated in Portugal and in other countries.³²⁸ Obviously certain aspects, such as the isolated geographical location and the advantages that this brings to TNR efforts, would not necessarily apply in the Swiss case. Other features, however, such as community engagement and the building of bridges across multiple sets of actors, could provide inspiration.

An additional way to reduce attitudinal barriers to TNR within Switzerland might be to share examples of existing accords of the type discussed in the previous section as a way to give positive experiences a “demonstration effect” and to propose potential models, even if only partial ones, that could be used in other parts of the country. Further research could determine whether other successful examples exist at the communal level in Switzerland and whether they, too, are replicable in some measure. Indeed, Roux noted that it was helpful when collaborative communes where TNR has already been conducted contact others where castration campaigns are being proposed.³²⁹ This suggests that a more systematic sharing of information among communes could contribute to changing attitudes within resistant populations. Whether this sharing should be primarily the work of NGOs, communes or the federal government, or some combination of these, is an open question.

In relation to irresponsible ownership more generally, this is a large topic that can only be touched upon here. Experts have pointed to responsible ownership, and education on this issue, as a fundamental part of the solution to feline overpopulation and the suffering of cats.³³⁰ The petition discussed in section 4 is aimed at legally requiring owners of free-roaming cats to take more responsibility for their pets by having them spayed and neutered. And it is predicated on the argument that this measure would reduce community cat populations, and thus feline suffering.

Shortly after the petition was delivered, the government launched, jointly with the PSA, the Société des Vétérinaires Suisses and other veterinary associations, a responsible ownership campaign called Luna & Filou.³³¹ The campaign highlights the benefits of spaying and neutering as well as microchipping outdoor cats, and seeks to raise public awareness and “contribute to the health and welfare of outdoor cats.”³³² Its website provides information about cat ownership, identification and registration of pet cats, spaying and neutering of cats, and key legal provisions related to animal welfare and pet ownership, with links to the websites and publications of its participating organizations. As the campaign is relatively new, it is too early to tell what its impact and reach might be. In principle, a country-wide, government-supported informational campaign calling for cat owners to take responsibility for their free-roaming pets is an important tool. NetAP, however, was highly critical of the campaign, saying it “seems to serve to justify the inaction of politics” (coming, as it did, on the heels of the government’s and SVS’s rejection of mandatory castration), asserting that none of the organizations involved in the campaign are working on the front lines, and complaining that NetAP was — S. 93 —“deliberately not included in this campaign.”³³³

One could also question the federal government’s general commitment to education on animal welfare. In 2014 World Animal Protection gave Switzerland a grade of “C” on “provision of humane education,” noting the following: “Education in Switzerland is decentralised to canton level, and there does not appear to be a Federal requirement for animal care and protection to be included in the curricula for each canton.”³³⁴ This is despite the fact that the Animal Welfare Act states, in Article 5(2), that the federal government “ensures that the public are informed about animal welfare issues.”³³⁵ Interestingly, one key informant recounted that her foundation had written to public schools in the Swiss-German cantons offering free instruction on animal protection issues, but had gotten only one expression of interest in the offer.³³⁶ The federal government’s approach to animal welfare education is beyond the scope of this article. Future research, however, could examine the government’s implementation of AWA Article 5(2) and the degree to which the education curriculum could incorporate specific topics such as responsible pet ownership.

The press also has a role to play in modifying attitudes by encouraging responsible ownership, uncovering animal cruelty and raising awareness of the plight of feral, stray and abandoned cats, as well as how TNR is being used to address the problem. Several interviewees underscored the importance of media coverage of these issues, and some acknowledged that the Swiss press had been helpful in promoting castration campaigns. One TNR practitioner asserted, however, that the issue “must be in the media weekly; otherwise, people forget about it,”³³⁷ underscoring the assertion in the scientific literature that for TNR to succeed, it requires consistent and ongoing maintenance and is not a one-off event.³³⁸ An interesting question about which there appears to be no research in Switzerland is the extent to which attitudes toward community cats might have changed over the years since TNR began to be practiced in the country, and since it has begun to gain more attention in the press. One interviewee with decades of experience carrying out TNR noted that, for a long time, people saw feral cats as something to get rid of. She expressed the cautiously optimistic impression that this has evolved a bit, toward where people see less of a difference between pet cats and feral cats.³³⁹

In this vein, and as touched on at the outset of the article, Schaffner calls for “reconceiving” unowned and feral cats as “members of our community” as opposed to “pests,” for “reframing the debate over their management,” and explicitly to use the term “community cats”.³⁴⁰ Switzerland’s multilingual aspect poses challenges for terminology. To the extent, however, that an equivalent term for “community cats” could be coined in its official languages to refer to stray, abandoned, feral, unowned and farm cats – all of which seem to be used interchangeably by those in the field – this might also help TNR practitioners to break down attitude-related barriers.

5.3Technical Improvements: Data and Targeted TNR

Some of the needed changes already discussed – legal, governance, social, behavioral – will hinge in part on the actions of actors, such as government, the press and the wider public, who are not necessarily directly involved in TNR in Switzerland. Technical and operational improvements represent another important way forward, however, and these are arguably in the hands of the TNR practitioners themselves. This final sub-section will take a look at potential improvements such as the collection and use of data and the use of targeted TNR. Better data in particular could help demonstrate, in a more systematic way, that TNR can contribute to stabilizing and reducing community cat populations, reducing feline suffering and lowering the conflicts between humans and animals.

As touched upon in section 2, a persistent challenge to TNR programs in general is the collection and analysis of data and performance metrics. Wildlife biologist John Boone, writing in 2015, asserted that “many — S. 94 —TNR programs do not produce substantial and persistent reductions in cat populations, and those that do often fail to effectively document this achievement or to publicize their success,” with the result being that “TNR has become increasingly controversial.”³⁴¹ For their part, Spehar and Wolf lament the “paucity of analyzable data” on TNR, noting that the grassroots nature of this practice “has led to inconsistent data collection.”³⁴²

At the same time, these authors and others offer recommendations on how TNR practitioners can address these challenges both by using their own resources and by partnering with others. Boone suggests TNR programs can be improved through the systematic incorporation of certain practices: for example, the target population “to be managed must be carefully defined in geographical terms” at the outset; a baseline survey of cat population size should be carried out; program goals – both population-level goals and “humane goals” such as improving cats’ health – should be “explicitly formulated”; data from population surveys should be analyzed to evaluate the program; and an ongoing monitoring plan outlined.³⁴³ These and other techniques, he points out, are “not new but many are not widely practiced in TNR programs”; what is more, many of them “require only commitment and diligence to implement, not technical training.”³⁴⁴ And where technical assistance is needed, it is often available from universities, government departments and others, with veterinarians being a key partner because of their “technical orientation and frequent involvement in TNR programs.”³⁴⁵ Boone also suggests computer modeling can help to measure TNR’s impact on outdoor cat populations, and urges animal welfare groups to “commit to using data to learn what works and what doesn’t, and adapt our operations accordingly.”³⁴⁶ For this, he says, they can learn from working with wildlife scientists.³⁴⁷

Spehar and Wolf report that a new initiative “to standardize TNR program data collection and assessment” is underway, but that the effort is incipient, and “it could be some time before scientifically sound protocols are implemented on a broad scale.”³⁴⁸ In the meantime, they argue that “citizen scientists” who collect data on TNR programs could offer a way forward. Their recent study of a TNR program in Chicago called Cats In My Yard (CIMY) highlights the role of the program’s founder, a local resident who, over 10 years, not only carried out TNR on almost 200 cats from colonies near her home but also collected, stored and updated data on the cats as well as census information on the colonies. The authors conclude that “much potential exists for citizen science to facilitate a better understanding of the impact of TNR on free-roaming cat populations.”³⁴⁹ The Humane Society of the US notes that data collection and assessment allow for the identification of community cat “hotspots”, which in turn provides for an accurate targeting of where to focus TNR so as to “reach a high enough rate of sterilization…to quell population growth.”³⁵⁰ The aforementioned study by McDonald et al provides preliminary evidence of how community engagement can help identify these hotspots.³⁵¹

These findings and recommendations could be helpful in the case of Switzerland, where no scientific studies of existing TNR were found in the public domain – for example, measuring the results of castration campaigns in specific areas over extended periods of time. Anecdotally, several key informants spoke of various improvements they had seen after years of TNR activity. These included better health of local outdoor cat populations, communes where the feral cat population had stabilized or even declined, and fewer complaints by local residents about the behavior of community cats. Some of these impressions were echoed in local press articles. Backing these impressions up with numbers could help change the minds of both residents and local authorities who express skepticism or opposition to TNR or who are not convinced of its rationale for community cat management.

Data collection systems do exist within Swiss TNR practice. The PSA requires its sections to provide statistics on their TNR operations each year to account for the dedicated funds distributed. As an example, one SPA section volunteer told of the meticulous record-keeping she did for each cat in a castration campaign, including a photograph of the cat, the date and location the cat was trapped, the veterinarian who performed — S. 95 —the surgery, which PSA financial voucher was used, and so forth, all of which she reported back to her SPA section. In response to the question of whether the PSA had figures or reports on the results of its TNR operations, the PSA stated that its section surveys in 2014 and 2017 showed that “the stray cat population has remained stable thanks to the PSA’s program.”³⁵² These figures, however, are internal and not shared or published, and as noted earlier, the PSA commissioned a study on TNR several years ago but it is not publicly available. As described in the previous section, community cats neutered in the Geneva TNR program are registered by the canton in a central database. And other TNR groups that are not members of the PSA also keep track of the aggregate numbers of cats sterilized yearly in their programs.³⁵³ Clearly, therefore, there are already some systems in place for impact measurement of TNR initiatives.

Nevertheless, important questions and challenges remain in relation to data and measurement. One interviewee with decades of TNR experience pointed out that as part of castration campaigns, data are collected on how many cats are neutered, but not information on how the TNR was done. She asserted further that a challenge in Switzerland is that TNR is not always conducted in a way that assures systematic neutering of an area’s feral cats.³⁵⁴ Indeed, it is not clear whether and to what extent groups conducting castration campaigns are doing targeted TNR, carrying out baseline surveys or analyzing population data. Complaints and reports from local residents appear to be the basis for some – possibly many – TNR campaigns in Switzerland.³⁵⁵ If hot spots have been identified through formal surveys or chosen for systematic measurement of TNR impact, these instances did not turn up in the research. In the future, a more in-depth, formal investigation of Swiss castration campaigns across multiple cantons could shed light on whether this more systematic approach exists somewhere, and if it does, what results it has uncovered.

In the meantime, one way to strengthen TNR as it is practiced in Switzerland would be for local practitioners to take account of the lessons emerging from other countries about how TNR programs can improve their effectiveness and efficiency through better data collection and management, including through collaboration with veterinarians, wildlife scientists and others. Another possible step would be for academic or scientific studies to be undertaken of castration campaigns to identify results as well as ways to suggest improvements to existing techniques. These changes could also eventually help Swiss TNR programs make the case that these campaigns, in addition to being more acceptable in animal welfare terms, can be more effective and financially more sustainable in the long run than are other approaches, such as trapping and killing, or relocation of intact feral cats.³⁵⁶

5.4Moving forward

The ground is fertile for making the changes explored in this section. Animal welfare has made strides in Switzerland over the past three decades, and there seems to be room for further evolution. In the view of Bolliger, the Swiss mentality toward animals has changed for the better, and this has pushed laws to change. He writes, specifically, that the amendment of the Swiss Civil Code in 2003 to reflect that animals are not things was meant “to reflect in the law a change in the general perception in Swiss society towards animals as sentient fellow creatures possessing dignity and, in particular, to acknowledge the increasing prevalence of pets.”³⁵⁷ TIR asserts that in Switzerland, “animal welfare law is no longer perceived as a marginal topic, but is now recognized by attorneys-at-law and academics as an independent subject.”³⁵⁸ Michel and Schneider Kayasseh argue that “the Swiss public is actively engaged in questions of animal protection, and the corresponding initiatives and law changes and revisions have great resonance among the general populace and are passionately debated.”³⁵⁹ The outgoing director of Specialized Services of the PSA, Hansuli Huber, — S. 96 —reflecting on changes he had seen in Switzerland over his 30 years with the PSA, said in 2019: “The relationship between humans and animals has changed greatly. It has become much closer…Overall, I think that we can talk about a positive evolution.”³⁶⁰

More specifically in relation to feral cats, one veterinarian interviewed said that today there seems to be “much less euthanasia or indiscriminate shooting” and “more trapping for castration, eventual care, and release of feral cats.”³⁶¹ Also on the positive side, she noted “a better understanding by the public of these campaigns and also more of a demand, both by individuals and communities, for it.”³⁶² And Roux acknowledges that TNR is like “the work of ants,” but that progress is being made; in her view, the problem of community cat proliferation “is solvable.”³⁶³

These dynamics could bode well for the changes and improvements called for here. It is time for Switzerland to take its place in the growing mosaic of TNR initiatives around the world. Its operations have something to offer to the expanding set of case studies from multiple countries. By the same token, lessons that have emerged in other places can provide inspiration and guidance for Swiss programs. An important next step would be for the Swiss case to be more fully investigated. It is to this topic that the concluding section turns.